Kansas football OC Jeff Grimes gives baffling explanation for playcalling woes

Kansas football fans are still distraught about the Jayhawks' 23-17 loss to Illinois in Champaign this past weekend. KU had the game in its hands, but it continually shot itself in the foot and committed four turnovers en route to a comeback victory for the Illini.

No matter who you place the blame on for the defeat, all fans can agree that first-year offensive coordinator Jeff Grimes had a rough night. There was a clear difference with how he and former play-caller Andy Kotelnicki handled the offense. When he met with the media on Tuesday, he praised Illinois' defensive coverages rather than recognizing his own mistakes:

Jeff Grimes fails to take accountability after Illinois loss

Grimes has served in coaching positions at over one dozen FBS schools dating back to 30 years ago, yet a team that yielded 29.4 points per game last year and lost its best defensive player to the NFL "disguised things better than any college defense he's been around." For some reason, that seems pretty difficult to believe.

Not to say that Illinois' defense did not do its job, but a good portion of the loss should lie on Grimes. It was absolutely criminal that star running back Devin Neal only received 14 carries when the game script clearly favored him to receive at least 20+ touches. Grimes abandoned the run game and continued to let a struggling Jalon Daniels make ill-advised throws, some to the other team.

The drive that highlighted Grimes' terrible night was toward the end of the first half. After Quentin Skinner fumbled a pitch on what would have been an easy first-down jet sweep, the Jayhawks could have ran the clock to try and hold a 10-6 lead at half. Instead, Grimes drew up a wide receiver screen on 3rd and 13 with 42 seconds remaining in the half on KU's own 33-yard line. That's something your peewee football coach could have told you was a terrible idea.

It's still early in Grimes' tenure as offensive coordinator at the University of Kansas. However, he'll have to clean up some of his playcalling blunders this week as the team gears up for conference play if he plans to stay in Lawrence in the coming years. He certainly hasn't given Jayhawk fans any reason to believe in him yet.